It was from the _Adela_ that Jem and I had our first swimming-lessons,
Mr. Wood lowering us with a rope under our arms, by which he gave us as
much support as was needed, whilst he taught us how to strike out.
We had swimming-races on the canal, and having learned to swim and dive
without our clothes, we learnt to do so in them, and found it much more
difficult for swimming and easier for diving. It was then that the
trousers we had damaged when the _Adela_ was built came in most
usefully, and saved us from having to attempt the at least equally
difficult task of persuading my mother to let us spoil good ones in an
amusement which had the unpardonable quality of being "very odd."
Dear old Charlie had as much fun out of the boat as we had, though he
could not learn to dive. He used to look as if every minute of a pull up
the canal on a sunny evening gave him pleasure; and the brown Irish
spaniel Jem gave him used to swim after the boat and look up in
Charlie's face as if it knew how he enjoyed it. And later on, Mr. Wood
taught Bob Furniss to row and Charlie to steer; so that Charlie could
sometimes go out and feel quite free to stop the boat when and where he
liked.
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